


the language of flowers

by thesoftsoobin



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Best Friends Choi Beomgyu & Choi Yeonjun, M/M, Mentioned Ateez and Itzy members, Minor Choi Beomgyu/Kang Taehyun, Oblivious Choi Soobin, Whipped Choi Yeonjun, Yeonjun thinks everything needs to be a romantic gesture All The Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:34:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27665482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesoftsoobin/pseuds/thesoftsoobin
Summary: yeonjun has a foolproof plan: tell soobin he has a crush on him through the language of flowers.the only problem? soobin doesn't seem to catch on. even after bouquet number three.
Relationships: Choi Soobin/Choi Yeonjun
Comments: 15
Kudos: 151
Collections: txt fic fest





	the language of flowers

**Author's Note:**

> hiii I'm probably going to come back and edit this once I'm not dying from a migraine but I hope you all enjoy <3

Yeonjun discovered he was “a little too much” on the hottest day of May.

He had been helping his girlfriend, Lia, pack up her dorm for the summer. As he kneeled down to seal the last cardboard box shut, she’d said, “Hey, listen, I really need to talk to you.”

Right then and there, with him knelt below her in the sweltering hot room, she broke up with him. It was quick, but nowhere near painless. He was getting to be overwhelming, she’d told him, and while the romantic gestures were cute at first, he was starting to overdo it.

She couldn’t possibly reciprocate all of the ‘good morning’ texts, the random gifts that had reminded him of her, and all of the _caring_ and _helping_. She wasn’t sure anyone could reciprocate that amount of love, she’d said. It was just...a lot.

He left her room after stuttering through a quiet, ‘Have a good summer, I guess,’ then trudged through campus girlfriendless and with a whole dorm of his own still to be packed up.

Now, five months later, Yeonjun’s cursing under his breath and wondering if he has enough time to sprint back to the flower shop. The pink asters in his hands are beautiful and smell sweet, but they’re _a little too much._

In the last, uneventful 20 minutes of his shift at the shop, he had the brilliant idea of telling Soobin he liked him with a bouquet. He’d use the subtle language of flowers to tell him, he reasoned. It was much better, much less uncomfortable than the flat-out confession he’d given Lia over a year ago.

The only restriction he gave himself was "not roses” (because everyone on earth knew the meaning of roses). Everything else in the rainbow-colored shop, with all of their history and meanings, was fair game.

Eventually, he’d settled on the asters and arranged them with care, walking confidently out of the shop and to Soobin's dorm for their study date -- er, session. Study session.

He only realized that this was still a terrible idea when he was in front of Soobin's door, his sweaty hands sticking to the cellophane wrapping. They weren't roses, but they still symbolized _romance_.

Pink asters were only a step below roses in terms of subtlety. He should have chosen morning glories, signifying affection, or white camellias, which _could_ symbolize adoration but had the safety net of also being thought to bring luck. 

Soobin might not know what each flower represented like Yeonjun did, but he’s smart enough to figure it out. He’s going to get one look at Yeonjun handing him the flowers and know that they mean something. And as soon as Yeonjun leaves later, he's going to look it up and put two and two together.

And yeah, this _is_ a confession. But the whole point of it, the whole reason Yeonjun thought to do it at all, was because it’s less risky than saying it out loud. He doesn’t want to overwhelm Soobin with it, and _romance_ flowers would definitely do that.

Yeonjun has to get rid of them as soon as possible. His eyes search the dorm hallway and settle on an overflowing trash can at the end of it. It’s his only option. He takes a deep breath and one step toward it when Soobin's door swings open. Soobin’s roommate, Taehyun, glances down at the flowers and gives Yeonjun a smirk.

"Oh, Yeonjun-hyung," he laughs. "Are those for me? You shouldn't have." 

"Ah, um," he holds the asters to his chest. "No, I—"

Great. The flowers alone are obvious and over-the-top. Soobin is going to be weirded out them any minute n—

"Hyung!" Soobin leans over so he can be seen from behind his roommate. He’s sitting up on his lofted bed and his wide smile accentuates his dimples. Yeonjun thinks he might faint. "I was wondering where you were. You're usually early."

"Sorry, I got caught up at work," Yeonjun says. As they speak, Taehyun steps around him to head off to his night class. He gives him an encouraging pat on the back, and Yeonjun winces. Not because it hurts, but because now the bouquet and all of its meaning is visible to Soobin.

Soobin’s smile widens, and Yeonjun actually gets a little light-headed seeing Soobin’s dimples get deeper. He didn’t think that was possible. The lanky, pink-haired boy hopped down from his bed, and it’s only then that Yeonjun realizes he’s still in the hallway.

"I brought you these," he says, walking in too quickly and holding them out for Soobin.

Soobin lets out a tiny (and devastatingly cute) "oh" as he takes them. "Wow. They’re so pretty, hyung. You work at the flower shop down the street from campus, right?" he asks. And then, as if catching himself, he adds, “I think Beomgyu might have mentioned it before.”

“I’ve complained about it once or twice,” Yeonjun laughs.

Soobin laughs with him, but then there’s a silence that lasts for eons as Soobin gazes down at the asters. He has a soft smile on his face that Yeonjun can’t read. The longer he goes without saying anything, the more Yeonjun’s brain screams _he knows you like him and he thinks you’re weird and he just doesn’t know what to say._

“Oh, they need a vase, huh?” Soobin pushes the bouquet back into Yeonjun’s hands and turns to rummage through his desk. Yeonjun curses himself for not thinking of that; no college student owns a vase.

But then, from the depths of the bottom drawer, Soobin pulls out a gigantic mug shaped like a bunny, way too oversized to drink from. Yeonjun’s thoughts stop entirely.

 _So. Cute._

“Will this work?”

“I--oh--we’ll have to--” Yeonjun stammers. “We’ll have to cut them, but yeah that’s...well it’s perfect.”

Soobin gives him a nod, and with his other hand, he pulls a pair of scissors from a container on the desk. Before Soobin can offer to do it himself, Yeonjun rushes to take them from him. It’s his fault for not bringing a vase, and he still wants them to look perfect.

Another silence stretches between them, the only sound being that of Yeonjun meticulously clipping each stem in the bouquet. To fill it, Soobin grabs a half-empty water bottle from his desk that crinkles under his grip as he uncaps it. He pours it carefully into the makeshift vase.

"You know, I follow a guy on TikTok that works in a flower shop," he says when Yeonjun has only a few stems left.

Yeonjun glances up, but only for a second. The scissors aren’t great, but so far he's got most of them evenly trimmed, and he doesn't want to mess up now. "Yeah?"

"Yeah,” Soobin clears his throat. “He’s pretty cool. You should do something like that.”

Yeonjun snaps through the final stem and it drops into the garbage can below him with the rest. “I’ll think about it,” he says, and he actually considers doing it just to make Soobin happy.

Nice and delicately, he slides the flowers into the mug. They fit snugly, just as he'd hoped, and the pink from the flowers matches almost perfectly with the pink of the bunny's ears. They look—

"Wow," Soobin says, taking the mug from him and holding it up close to get a better look. Yeonjun can barely handle the smile on his face, so soft and different from his usual wide and bright ones. "That's so nice, hyung. Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah," Yeonjun shakes his head, slipping his hands in his pockets. "'Course."

The soft smile lasts a beat, and Yeonjun hopes Soobin will say something, acknowledge the message of the flowers in some way. Even if it’s ‘Hyung, sorry, but I don’t like you like that.’

But soon, Soobin’s smile is replaced by the usual look of fake sternness Soobin wears when it was time to stop goofing off and get to work.

"So, you said you have a test on the theories of motivation and emotion coming up?" Soobin asks as he turns and places the mug on his desk, next to a framed photo of his dog. Without turning back to Yeonjun, he hops back up onto his bed.

Yeonjun throws his backpack up before climbing the bed (which is much more of a feat for him, he might add, than his 6'2 crush) and sitting cross-legged in his usual spot across from Soobin.

Studying together on Soobin's bed had always felt intimate, especially the more Yeonjun fell for him. But as Soobin explains the Schachter theory of emotion, cutely calling it 'Schachter 3-factor' in an attempt to help Yeonjun remember, Yeonjun can’t lean in and giggle like he usually would.

Instead he glances at the asters sitting sweetly on Soobin's desk. And he can’t help but feel he’s just been graciously rejected. 

\--

Yeonjun hadn’t even liked Soobin that much when they first met. He’d barely even acknowledged him, really.

Shortly before Lia broke up with him, his best friend Beomgyu started going on dates with a skinny, sarcastic boy named Taehyun. Beomgyu was a notorious serial dater, but Yeonjun knew the two were going to end up being a couple after Taehyun came over to their dorm for the first time.

Rather than doting after him, Taehyun had challenged Beomgyu and called him out when necessary. He stared him down, gave him a once over, and was able to tell it like it is. Yeonjun had thought Beomgyu’s ability to banter was unmatched, but he’d found a worthy opponent in Taehyun.

He had thought it was perfect when he first bore witness to their easy back-and-forth. But with impeccable timing that only seemed to prove the universe was against him, Beomgyu and Taehyun got together only days after Lia pulled the rug out from under him. Every time Taehyun came to the dorm after that, Yeonjun felt more like he was grinning and bearing it.

When the fall semester started, their friend group of two expanded to five to accommodate Taehyun and his two friends, Hueningkai and Soobin.

They’d eat lunch together, circled around a table in the dining hall and cracking jokes while Taehyun and Beomgyu alternated between arguing and shamelessly flirting. Beomgyu made a group chat for the five of them, and sometimes, they’d all go to shows together at the local music venue.

The whole time, though, Yeonjun was building walls up. He spent most of those gatherings in his head, wondering what it was he should have done differently with Lia.

He’d simply laugh when the others laughed and contributed only when what he should say was obvious. He didn’t have room in his mind to even find someone else attractive, much less _fall_ for someone else. He barely even had room for school.

So, when he complained about how he’d probably flunk his gen ed psychology class and Soobin offered to tutor him, he thought nothing of it.

He thought nothing of the plants on the window sill or the Snoopy poster over his desk that he now finds endearing. He was just there to get psychology help from a psychology major. 

But then a few study sessions in, Yeonjun was having a particularly heavy day. He’d gotten a poor grade on his first test in his color theory class, and then on his way out of the building, he’d seen Lia on campus for the first time all semester. She was hanging over some guy from some sports team and didn’t even spare him a glance.

Somehow, Soobin could tell psychology was the last thing Yeonjun wanted to focus on. He didn’t say anything, but Yeonjun saw it in the way he looked at him.

Instead of pulling out his old intro to psychology notebook, he pulled out his laptop and said, “I’m really tired today. Want to watch a Ghibli movie instead?” 

He’d let Yeonjun pick _My Neighbor Totoro,_ and they sat with their thighs pressed together on Soobin’s twin-sized bed to watch. In the dark, Soobin’s fairy lights and laptop screen lit his face up in a new way, and that’s when it all started.

It started slowly -- Well, slow for Yeonjun. He was used to seeing someone and declaring them his soulmate right then and there.

It started with a glance around the room, at the shadows of the parts of Soobin Yeonjun had grown familiar with, and the thought, “Wow, he’s really cool.” It continued with the realization that Yeonjun loved the way Soobin fell into him every time he’d laugh at something that was hardly funny. And he knew something was different from before when he decided Soobin’s laugh was the cutest thing he’d ever heard. 

Then during the next study session, it was the realization that Soobin wasn’t just interesting and cute. He was smart, too, and he always found a way to make psychology funny so Yeonjun would remember it. Yeonjun grinned at each pun, and there was Soobin falling into him with his cute laugh again. 

After that, Yeonjun found himself thinking of Soobin when his brain would go silent. Usually when he was bored in his 8 a.m. class, he’d wonder what Soobin was doing then. Sleeping, probably, because he was smart enough to avoid early classes. Curled up in his sunflower yellow sheets.

Soon, he’d think of Soobin even when he wasn’t bored. He’d think of what it’d be like to hold his hand, wondered what his favorite flavor of Pepero was, thought he’d look good in the jacket he was designing for a class.

Then, in a matter of a few weeks, the love-struck boy was already sick of keeping his thoughts in the confines of his and Beomgyu’s walls, and he was putting together a bouquet of asters.

The second floor of the library is quiet, save for another table of students typing away at their computers. Yeonjun takes that, and his growling stomach, as a sign that he shouldn’t still be there.

He snaps a photo of Beomgyu across the table, drawing in his sketchbook, and uploads it to Twitter.

**jun (@choiyeonjunie):** this demon is making me stay here until we finish this. send help (and kimbap)

The two of them have a project due for their fashion sketching class tomorrow, and they’re completely behind on it. It’s Beomgyu's fault, really. He’s such a perfectionist that he spent all of the past week on a single design.

Beomgyu might tell you it’s Yeonjun’s fault for putting the entire thing off until now, but he disagrees. Whoever’s fault it is, they’re stuck drawing in the library at 10 p.m. with no end in sight.

"Maybe I could tell him I threw up," Yeonjun says, fiddling his pencil in between his fingers. He’s trying to work, but he’s more worried about trying to get out of his and Soobin's study session tomorrow.

"You're being dramatic," Beomgyu tells him absent-mindedly. He glances between his drawing and the examples on his laptop, double-checking his work.

"I'm not," Yeonjun says. "It's completely justified to want to avoid—"

"You are," he finally looks up, brushing eraser shavings off of his page. "And your anatomy is off."

Yeonjun looked down at his own work. "It's fashion design, the legs are supposed to be long."

"The arms are too short," Beomgyu says after looking again.

Yeonjun rolls his eyes and picks up his eraser. "Anyway, you just don't get it. You weren't there."

"Explain it to me again," Beomgyu says, setting his pencil down. He leans over to pull his case of colored pencils out of his backpack. "Slowly this time, like I'm a child."

"That’s how I explain everything to you."

Beomgyu gasps melodramatically and flings the pink pencil he’s holding at Yeonjun’s head. It clatters on an empty table behind him instead.

“I’m only nine months younger than your beloved,” Beomgyu points out.

“He’s not my _beloved_ ,” Yeonjun says. “He was too nice when he took the flowers, and then he changed the subject really fast. It was a clear rejection.”

“Doesn’t sound very clear to me, hyung,” Beomgyu stands, presumably to get his discarded colored pencil. But before he can go anywhere, a shit-eating grin overtakes his face. “Hey Soobin-hyung! We were just talking about you.”

Yeonjun nearly falls over whipping himself around. Soobin _is_ there, but he just walked up the steps and is _thankfully_ not close enough to have heard anything Yeonjun had just said.

“Beomgyu-yah, are you holding Yeonjun-hyung hostage?” Soobin says when he approaches their table. He’s carrying a paper bag from the nearby market, his pink hair covered with a white beret. Yeonjun has to look away before he starts staring.

Beomgyu lowers himself back down, forgetting his pencil and grabbing a different color. “Only temporarily.”

“He’s resorted to a life of crime,” Yeonjun says to his sketchpad. He tries, as casually as possible, to cover the disproportionate arms with his hand.

“Well, uh, I can’t free you, but,” Soobin slips a tray of kimbap out of his bag and onto the table in front of Yeonjun, “um, kimbap!”

Yeonjun forces himself to look at Soobin, and he doesn’t try to hide his confusion.

“I saw your tweet,” Soobin says simply. “You like the kind with kimchi, right?”

“Oh. Yeah,” Yeonjun nods, eyebrows still laced together. But he isn’t going to complain. His stomach has been growling for the last hour. He pops the lid off and tears open the chopsticks. “Yeah, thanks, Soobin-ah.” 

As Soobin makes his way around the table to sit beside Beomgyu, Beomgyu raises his eyebrows at Yeonjun knowingly. Yeonjun would throw a colored pencil right back at him if he could do it without Soobin noticing.

Instead, he lowers his eyes and digs in.

“What about me, hyung?”

Yeonjun looks up, expecting Soobin to take another tray from his bag for Beomgyu. Because of course he would, right? There’s no reason he’d only get something for Yeonjun, especially since Beomgyu was right there in the tweet.

But Soobin looks like this is his first time realizing Beomgyu’s there and probably hungry, too. His eyes grow wide, and he starts to stammer.

“Maknaes don’t get kimbap deliveries,” Yeonjun teases, if only to save Soobin from the cute little stress line creasing into his forehead. He pops another roll in his mouth and does his happy food dance while Beomgyu frowns.

He was going to give his best friend some anyway, of course, but yet another shit-eating grin appears on Beomgyu’s face before he can offer.

“I’m gonna go see if Namjoon-ssi will forgive my late fees,” Beomgyu says, getting up from his seat. He reaches out and steals a roll from Yeonjun’s tray, and through a mouthful of food, he adds, “I’ll be back in like, mmm, 20 minutes.”

“Maybe try calling him Mr. Kim,” Soobin says, and Beomgyu turns around to give him finger guns.

“Good call,” he says, “but I refuse.”

With that, he’s down the steps two at a time to the main desk, each step echoing after him. Soobin laughs, and Yeonjun’s insides are a mess now that they’re alone, but he laughs too.

He refuses to make anything weirder than he’s already made it.

“He thinks calling him what he’s supposed to is too easy,” he says, the most obvious way to keep the conversation going.

“Does he know him?”

“He’s his brother’s friend.”

“Oh,” Soobin mouths, nodding, then he points to the kimbap. “That good?”

Yeonjun picks another piece up with his chopsticks. “Yeah,” he says, gesturing it toward Soobin. “Want a bite?”

“No, no. You should eat. You already gave one to Beomgyu,” Soobin says. And then suddenly, there’s that same soft, unreadable smile on his face.

Yeonjun pops the piece in his mouth, shrugging. “He took one, technically,” he says, then swallows. “Hey thanks, though. Really. You didn’t have to bring that.”

The soft smile falls yet again, and Soobin waves his hand like it’s no big deal. “I was already at the mart, getting ready to head here.”

As if to prove his point, he pulls his laptop out of his backpack and opens it up. Yeonjun reaches for his pencil, but then Soobin says, “And besides, I owe you for those flowers.”

“Right,” Yeonjun says, twiddling his pencil between his fingers. He squints down at his drawing but doesn’t see it.

He had thought there was no way Soobin didn’t know. Yeonjun was obvious, always. Far Too Much at any moment in time, and surely a blushing mess whenever he was around him. He’d worked himself into a frenzy the past few days, certain Soobin knew about his crush even _before_ the flowers and had just been politely rejecting him this whole time.

But no one, not even someone as polite and kind as Soobin, takes a confession and thinks, ‘Thanks, I owe you one.’

He’s clueless, utterly clueless. And the realization lights Yeonjun up inside, sends butterflies to his stomach, and somehow makes Soobin that much cuter. 

With the smallest of grins on his face, still in disbelief, he glances up to peek at his crush. The sound of Soobin typing on his keyboard had been background music for Yeonjun’s thoughts, so he expects him to be working. But they seem to look up at the same time, and their eyes meet.

“Speaking of the flowers,” Soobin says, pouting. “I have bad news.”

His mouth is made to pout, the perfect arch in his upper lip making it an expression you can’t say “no” to. Yeonjun unconsciously leans forward and almost loses himself in the thought of kissing the pout right off Soobin’s face.

“Yeah?” He somehow thinks to say.

“They died,” Soobin sticks his bottom lip out further, resting his chin in his hand. “I swear, I took good care of them and replaced the water a couple of times, like you said.”

"It's been two weeks."

"I know," Soobin says, falling back into his chair and slapping his hand down onto the table. "That's not long, is it?"

"That's longer than most cut flowers," Yeonjun can’t help but laugh, "It's not like your houseplants, Binnie. They don't last long."

"Oh," Soobin's jaw goes slack, his lips pursed in thought now. Yeonjun’s sure now that his lips were made for kissing, too. And maybe he still has a chance to find that out. "So I did good?"

"You did great," he said.

It’s then, he determines, he'll try again.

So, the following day, instead of telling Soobin that he'd thrown up, he shows up at his dorm with a bouquet of pink ranunculuses. This time, Soobin’s the one to open the door, and a mix of expressions passes over his features. Joy, surprise, and maybe a tiny bit of awe.

"These are ranunculuses," Yeonjun is sure to say.

Maybe Soobin just didn't know what the asters were called last time and didn't know what to look up. "Spelled just as it sounds. I cut them to fit into your mug."

"Wow, hyung," Soobin takes the bouquet and places it neatly in the mug, which is still on his desk with a few wilted leaves around it. "I've never even heard of these."

Still, though, Soobin is quick to get them on track to work, hardly a flicker of recognition in his eyes.

Two weeks later, after Soobin had texted him 'Dead again :( and these were so pretty,' Yeonjun brings him another bouquet of them. This time they’re yellow, one of Soobin's favorite colors. His smile is brighter this time.

“You’re spoiling me now, hyung.”

“I can’t help it. You look so happy every time.”

But the smile fades nonetheless.

"Finals soon, huh?" he quickly changes the subject after replacing the old bouquet with the new one. Instead of throwing them away, he sets the old bouquet down gently on top of his early childhood development textbook. "Do you feel ready?"

"Uh, sort of," Yeonjun says. He glances down at both bouquets of flowers and then back up at Soobin. "You know, flowers have meanings. People used to give them as a way to discreetly send messages to others."

Soobin blinks. "Really?"

"Yeah," Yeonjun takes a breath. He wasn't really prepared to be so forward about this. "Ranunculuses are pretty cool because they only have one meaning. Most flowers have a few, if not like, ten."

"What do they mean?"

"They mean, basically, 'I think you're charming,'" he says. "And the asters— Well, asters can mean a lot of things. Those are the ones I gave you first, by the way. They're pretty much a symbol of love."

He hates this, cringing as he says it. It feels like the big confession he’s been trying to avoid all this time.

Yeonjun thinks, maybe, that he sees Soobin start to get it. He sees the gears shifting in his head as he puts the two meanings together.

He braces himself as Soobin opens his mouth, but all that comes out is, "Do you just know all this off the top of your head?"

"Yeah," Yeonjun stammers. “I learned them the more I worked at the flower shop. I love helping people pick out ways to subtly say things."

"Hm," Soobin picks up his bunny mug and turns it around in his hands, surveying the yellow flowers. "'I think you're charming.' Neat. What a cool fact, hyung."

Yeonjun stands there, at a complete loss for words. Soobin has to get it. He’s _smart._ Okay, sure, he’s bad at math. But he studies psychology! He should be able to read Yeonjun's mind, especially when he’s spelling it out for him.

But here he is, completely not getting it.

"Yeah," Yeonjun breathes.

"I wonder who came up with that. Like how did everyone just agree on this?" Soobin goes on. "Nothing about this flower particularly says that to me. Not any more than like, a lily would."

Yeonjun wants to scream, ‘I like you, damn it! _I_ think _you’re_ charming!’ But he keeps his mouth shut.

Yeonjun glares at the white ranunculus bouquet a customer had just purchased to give a girl on their first date. He'd helped her pick them out specifically, but the whole time he was trying to figure out what flower he could give Soobin that would get him to understand _he_ wanted to go on a date with _him_.

"Careful," Chaeryeong says, arranging a purple bouquet on a table beside the register. "Or they'll catch fire, and she'll want a refund."

"I can't look at them without feeling frustrated."

She hums, turning toward the garbage to start trimming the stems now. With each snip of the scissors, Yeonjun can feel himself getting more frustrated. “Maybe you should tell him what they mean next time. It’s not exactly common knowledge anymore.”

“I _did_ tell him,” Yeonjun leans against the counter. He throws his head back and groans. “‘What a cool fact,’ was what he said. _Cool_. _Fact._ How is he so dense and so smart at the same time?”

“Well he is your crush, after all,” she says. Yeonjun can hear the grin in her voice as she continues to snip down the stems.

“ _He is your crush after all_ ,” Yeonjun mocks while Chaeryeong trades out her scissors for a wire cutter. “Don’t start with me, Chaer. I need your help.”

She turns toward him and pretends to think, wrapping the wire taut around the stems. “Have you considered…telling him how you feel?”

“No, of course not.”

“Why not?”

“Because that would freak him out, wouldn’t it? If I was just like, ‘Soobin-ah, I like you and I’d like to kiss you 1,000 times a day.’ Isn’t that _weird?”_

“Not if he also wants to kiss you 1,000 times a day.”

Yeonjun lets out a half sigh, half groan. “But if he doesn’t, then I’ll just have embarrassed myself.”

“Yeonjun-ssi,” Chaeryeong says, measuring out a strand of purple ribbon. “You don’t have to _actually_ say you want to kiss him 1,000 times a day.”

“I don’t?” he asks.

“No. It doesn’t have to be a big, embarrassing confession,” she slices through the ribbon with her scissors like it’s the period at the end of her sentence. “Just ask him out on a date. He’ll know that means you like him.”

“Oh.”

Yeonjun considers it. He’s always worn his heart on his sleeve, bearing his soul to anyone who would listen.

If it were up to him, he would have written a note to Soobin telling him all of his favorite things about him by now. He would’ve stopped him on his way to class and let all of his feeling pour out of his mouth. Hell, he would’ve stood outside his dorm with a sign that said, “Soobin-ah, please be my boyfriend.”

Is it possible to make this whole crush thing end without all of that? To just…ask a single question?

Before he can think more of it, Yeonjun pulls out his phone from his pocket as soon as Chaeryeong goes to put her final product out on display.

**Yeonjun**

Soobin-ah, I have a question.

The typing bubble that promptly appears taunts him, and it gives him just enough time to bite his thumbnail and wonder what the hell he’s doing. He could ask but doing it over text isn’t romantic _enough_. It feels too unlike him.

No, he shouldn’t do it. Not now.

Then the text comes in.

**the pretty choi**

Fire away, hyung.

He has to ask a question and fast. He could ask something about the psychology final that’s coming up, or ask a question about Taehyun as if it’s for Beomgyu. He thinks of all of these things as his hand types --

**Yeonjun**

Are you going to Mingi’s party next weekend 

**the pretty choi**

I was thinking about it

Are you?

**Yeonjun**

Yeah

The typing bubble appears and disappears a few times before Soobin’s text comes through.

**the pretty choi**

Then I’ll go :)

Yeonjun stares at the message and feels himself smile with it, the bell on the door the only thing breaking him out of his thoughts. That’s it: he’ll ask him then, at the party. 

On the day of the party, Yeonjun spends every moment between studying for finals thinking of what he’s going to say. He hasn’t felt this hopeful about the whole thing since he’d put the first bouquet of flowers together.

It didn’t have to be a huge announcement, he tries to remind himself. Like Chaeryeong said, he can just ask him. But there is still so much to consider. Should he say, “I was wondering if you wanted to go out sometime,” or just “Do you want to go out sometime?” And should he plan what the date would be already? Like coffee, or dinner? An escape room?

He speaks all of the possibilities under his breath as he makes his way back to his dorm from his psychology exam (which he’s pretty sure he aced, by the way, thanks to Soobin.)

Like any person with a crush, he notices Soobin coming out of the math building almost immediately. Like any person who has given a gift, he notices the ranunculuses in his hands. Not new ones -- the same yellow ranunculuses he’d given Soobin a week ago, just now starting to wilt and brown around the edges.

He skids to a stop in the snow and thinks for a second that maybe Soobin had been planning on seeing him and, for some reason, the dead flowers were involved. But Soobin isn’t looking at or walking towards him.

He’s walking toward one Hwang Yeji, shivering in her pink peacoat and white fluffy earmuffs. Yeonjun knows her only vaguely; she’d been in one of his gen ed classes, and sometimes she’d come into the shop to say hi to Chaeryeong.

Soobin seems to know her well, though. He doesn’t even bow when he sees her, just smiles enough to show his dimples. Yeonjun thinks he sees him mouth, “Sorry,” and she grins and rolls her eyes.

And then Soobin, in his cute white mittens, hands her the flowers.

Yeonjun has to go through the moment in his head, standing there with a pinched brow. Soobin. Yeji. Yeonjun’s flowers. Soobin gave Yeonjun’s flowers to Yeji. Ranunculuses. I think you’re charming. A romantic gesture.

Soobin likes her. Soobin likes girls. And for some reason he thought it was perfectly fine for him to give the flowers Yeonjun had given him to her.

Yeonjun understands then that the reason Soobin didn’t get the message of his flowers wasn’t that it was too subtle. Even the most obvious gesture would’ve gone over his head as platonic...because he’d never even seen Yeonjun as a romantic possibility.

“He’s not straight,” Beomgyu says the next day as Yeonjun lied in his dorm bed with a pillow over his face. He’s messing up his hair, trying to get it to look right for the party. Yeonjun stopped watching once he realized the one “out of place” hair would never look in place to Beomgyu.

“You don’t know that,” Yeonjun whines, voice muffled.

“I’m pretty sure Taehyun-ah would’ve made a ‘token straight friend’ joke by now if he was,” Beomgyu muses. “If anything, he’s probably bi like you.”

Yeonjun lifts the pillow off his face and smacks it down on the bed beside him. “Even if he’s bi, which he’s not because if he was gay at all he’d know _three_ bouquets of flowers were a romantic gesture from me, he still gave the flowers to Yeji.”

“Which were dying, you’ve chosen to ignore.”

“Maybe she likes dead flowers!” Yeonjun scrunches the pillow in his hand and throws it over his face again. “You didn’t see the way he looked at her.”

Beomgyu’s converse tap across the dorm room floor, and he pulls the pillow off of Yeonjun’s face. He’d apparently decided to just pull his hair up in a ponytail -- or a half of one, a whole chunk of wavy hair too short to be tied up.

“So you’re really not going to the party?”

“No,” Yeonjun pouts up at him. He pulls the pillow from Beomgyu’s hand and holds it tight over his face. “I’m too embarrassed.”

“At least go and try to hook up with someone.”

“Ugh,” Yeonjun groans loud and long into the pillow. “Go away.”

“Fine, I’m leaving now,” Beomgyu says. “But if you ask me, you’re overthinking this. Taehyun says he mentions you all the time. I think you just got too scared about asking him out tonight, and now you’ve decided to come up with any reason not to.” 

“That’s not true.”

“I think it is,” Beomgyu backs away as Yeonjun throws his pillow at him. He just keeps backing away until he hits the door, then flaps his arms like a chicken. “Bawk bawk,” he says, pulling the door open. “Yeonjun’s a chicken.”

“Wear a coat, dumbass,” Yeonjun calls as he was stepping out.

He takes Yeonjun’s brown fluffy jacket off of the hook on the door and slips it on. “You know where we’ll be,” he says, starting to close the door behind him. When there’s just enough space to stick his face through, he says, “Bawk bawk,” and then he’s gone.

Yeonjun decides last minute -- or what feels like it -- that he would go to the party. _Not_ because he wants to prove to Beomgyu that he isn’t a chicken. He just figures he’s going to think about Soobin whether he sees him or not, so he might as well get drunk while doing it.

Song Mingi's campus apartment isn’t far from the dorms. The brief walk through the snow is a welcome interlude that keeps Yeonjun's mind on his frozen ears and the fact that he should've worn gloves.

It’s fine, Yeonjun thinks as he shakes snow off of his boots in the apartment lobby. He has friends other than Beomgyu's group that he can hang out with tonight.

Maybe, just maybe, he can avoid Soobin completely. They both can forget this whole thing ever happened.

Up the stairwell, he can already hear the faint sounds of people chatting and the beat of Tubthumping by Chumbawamba over Mingi's stereo.

The door, of course, is unlocked. And Yeonjun's hopes and dreams are shattered the second he pushes it open.

There are people everywhere -- in the kitchen taking shots, standing in groups in the living room. A group of girls (including Yeji and his ex Lia, because why not) are dancing in the hallway and yelling out 'I get knocked down, but I get up again!'

That all doesn’t matter, though. Because directly in his line of sight is Soobin, nursing a beer on the arm of the couch.

Yeonjun takes two steps in and can’t keep himself from staring at the way Soobin's cheeks are tinted pink from the alcohol. His signature dimples are showing as Hueningkai tells a story with wide hand gestures and moderate screaming.

Yeonjun finally pulls himself together enough to consider ducking into the crowd in the kitchen.

But then Beomgyu notices him. 

"The king hath arrived!" Beomgyu calls across the room, already tipsy. He’s on the couch too, with Taehyun half on his lap, both of their arms slung around each other's necks.

Yeonjun reluctantly weaves through everyone and heads toward them.

"Ah, hey," he gives a small wave.

"He didn't chicken out," Beomgyu murmurs, a bit too loud, to Taehyun. Taehyun grins, knowing all too well that Yeonjun heard it. So directly to him, he deadpans, "We're so proud."

Yeonjun forces out a laugh and sneaks a peek at Soobin. With the way his luck is going for the night, though, he should have guessed he and Kai would be watching this entire conversation unfold.

When their eyes meet, Soobin smiles. Yeonjun does his best to do so in return, but it feels more like a grimace.

"Listen," Yeonjun turns away just as Soobin opens his mouth to say something. To Beomgyu, he says over the music, "I'm gonna, um, go get a drink. Do you need anything?"

Beomgyu glances down at the solo cup in his hands and gives Yeonjun a look. "I'm good."

"Cool," Yeonjun breathes and takes a step back. Just as he’s starting to walk away, he feels someone pull on the sleeve of his leather jacket.

"Yeonjun-hyu—aahh!" It’s Soobin, who’s now letting out a weak yell as he nearly loses his balance on the couch arm. Kai grabs his waist with both hands before Soobin and his beer can spill onto the floor.

Yeonjun wants to smile, laugh, anything good. But Soobin's cuteness only causes despair now. For a brief moment, his hell brain wonders why Soobin is hanging out here on the couch instead of on the floor of Mingi's closet, giving Yeji a hickey.

Soobin's blush is deeper now, and it takes him a bit too long to meet Yeonjun's eyes again.

"We're, uh," he says through a laugh, "I can take your coat. We have ours over here." He pats a pile of coats behind him. On the top is the fluffy brown coat Beomgyu stole just a few hours earlier.

Because he can’t think of a reason not to fast enough, Yeonjun pulls his jacket off and hands it to Soobin. Then he clears his throat and repeats, "I'm gonna go get a drink," before finally escaping.

Miraculously, he finds an empty spot on the kitchen counter next to all of the alcohol and hops up onto it. From there, he can survey the crowd to find someone, anyone, he's friends with that can distract him.

The apartment is far too small for this. He can still turn his head and see Soobin, and Soobin can still see him.

As he pours himself a shot of shitty soju, he spots Lia's lesbian friend Ryujin mixing a drink. Maybe she'd agree to fake-flirt with him and make it look like he's not pathetically smitten for a straight boy.

No, no. It'd just make him look pathetically smitten for a gay girl.

He takes the shot, winces, and leans back. From the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees Soobin watching him, but when he turns to look, Soobin's laughing at a game of beer pong going on between Yeji and Choi Jongho.

"Oh hey, Yeonjun-hyung," someone says as he pours himself another shot.

"Wooyoung-ah!" He says a bit too enthusiastically, voice strained as the second shot burns his throat. He's known Jung Wooyoung since middle school, and for a short period of time when they were both on the high school dance team, they were inseparable.

Finally, someone to actually keep him company.

And he does. Wooyoung pulls a can of beer from the fridge and leans his hip against the counter Yeonjun's sitting on. The beer fizzes as he opens it and asks, "Where've you been?"

"Suffering in the library, mostly."

They talk about nothing in particular but manage to do it for a while. A new R&B artist Wooyoung's obsessed with, the Color and Design Theory professor Yeonjun hates, and Wooyoung's own crippling crush on one Kang Yeosang. It's enough to get Yeonjun through an hour, two bottles of soju, and half a bottle of somaek.

By the time Wooyoung sees Yeosang arrive and beelines it toward him, Yeonjun is drunk enough to distract himself on his own.

He hops off of the counter, tripping on his way down, and ambles toward the bathroom to pee.

As he's washing his hands, he stares at himself in the mirror and tries to get his eyes to focus on his reflection. _Wow,_ he thinks, _I haven't thought about Soobin in over an hour_.

The gag, though, is that makes him think about Soobin. The alcohol doesn't help. Suddenly, he has Soobin's pink cupid bow lips on his mind. He realizes too that he's never seen Soobin drunk, wonders what he's like.

Clumsy, apparently, judging by the way he nearly fell off the couch. But probably a cute happy drunk too. Touchy, flirty.

Yeonjun turns the tap off and doesn't even dry his hands before he pulls the bathroom door open. He thinks of going home then, before thoughts of Soobin can take him right to his crush.

But before he can go anywhere, he stops in his tracks. Because right there in front of him is Soobin, leaning against the wall with his phone in one hand and a red solo cup in the other.

He looks up as soon as Yeonjun opens the door.

He can no longer avoid him, nor does he want to. He wants to kiss him. He wants to know him.

"Hey," Soobin says, "Want to try this? Yeji tried to make butterbeer but I'm not sure how I feel about it."

It hits him again that he can't kiss him and knowing him would hurt too much.

"Ah, no. I'm okay," he says, and tries to side-step away.

"Hey, wait," Soobin slips his phone into his pocket and takes a few steps to close the distance between them again. "I've barely talked to you all night."

"Sorry," Yeonjun stammers. "I-I've been--"

"Beomgyu said you were trying to hook up with someone tonight," Soobin laughs, and it comes out weird, like he's straining himself. "Wooyoung, probably, he said. Which is weird because for some reason I thought you were straight."

"I'm gonna kill him," Yeonjun mutters. 

"You're gonna kill Wooyoung?" Soobin's eyebrows weave together.

"No, I'm gonna kill Beomgyu."

"You're gonna kill...Beomgyu?"

"It'd be so easy," Yeonjun says, then his brain manages to circle back. "Wait, why would I be straight? Everyone in our whole group is gay. Makes no sense." 

Soobin laughs again, easily this time. "You're cute, hyung. You know that?"

"Um," Yeonjun stares at him, his brain short-circuiting. Soobin is acting weird, and if he doesn't leave now he's going to end up actually kissing him and ruining anything he hasn't already. "I'm gonna go...try to hook up with Wooyoung, I guess."

"Y'know," Soobin says a bit louder to stop Yeonjun from leaving. "I'm beginning to think you're avoiding me."

So, he's a confident drunk. Noted.

Yeonjun can barely find the words to respond, and then it just slips out. "It's not because I like you, or anything. But I saw you giving Yeji the ranunculus bouquet. And like, damn. At least give her a new bouquet. Kind of sucks when your romantic gift is regifted."

"Yeonjun, the flowers were dead."

"I mean, I wasn't going to say anything," Yeonjun throws his hands up. "But yeah, that's a little weird."

"She said she'd press them for me," Soobin says. "So I can save them."

"Oh. Well, still," Yeonjun feels the need to clarify, drunk brain still set on the narrative it created while sober, "It's not like I like you. I mean you're straight. I’d probably like you if you were gay, but why would I like a straight guy?"

"I'm not--" Soobin starts, and then he repeats Yeonjun's words from moments ago. "Why would I be straight? Everyone in our whole group is gay." 

Yeonjun blinks. "Well. You--"

"I've never been attracted to a girl in my life," Soobin says. "At least with you, you had an ex-girlfriend you were still in love with when we met."

"I--"

He doesn't know what to say, not with the way Soobin is looking at him. Not with the way Mirrorball by Taylor Swift is playing over the speakers and making this feel like more of a romantic moment than--

"So, you like me then?" Soobin gives him a little, teasing smile, tilting his head to the side.

"Well, I--" Yeonjun swallows, glancing down at the floor before looking back up at Soobin. "I did tell you multiple times through the language of flowers."

Soobin’s been gradually getting closer. “Hmm, yeah. You did, didn’t you?” His voice is still teasing. “You think I’m charming.”

“Mhm,” Yeonjun barely gets out. There’s not much space between them now. He has to look up at Soobin just to meet his eye, which was hard enough to do before. He’s practically eye-level with Soobin’s pretty lips, and he’s finding it harder and harder to keep himself together.

He glances down at Soobin’s lips and decides, _fuck it._

Then Yeonjun is kissing him, finally. His lips are as soft as he'd guessed, and he tastes like maple syrup.

The morning sun flits through the dorm curtains, light waning and waxing as the hot air from the vents moves them. Yeonjun turns over and wakes with his jeans on and a migraine.

Beside him, Beomgyu’s bed is unmade. The sheets and the comforter are crumpled at the very end, but he’s nowhere to be found.

Yeonjun sleepily slaps around his bed for his phone, and when he finds it, it’s at 2 percent. He pulls open his chat with Beomgyu and texts him anyway.

**Yeonjun**

Where’d you go

It takes Beomgyu a full 15 minutes to respond, and Yeonjun’s battery goes down to 1 percent in the meantime.

**the least cool choi**

???

i stayed over tyuns

how’s ‘straight’ soobin ahahah

As if on cue, the dorm door opens and Soobin walks in. He’s balancing two cups of coffee on top of a to go box, holding them steady with his chin. The other hand that shuts the door is holding a brown paper bag from the corner store.

Soobin looks more immaculate than a hungover college sophomore should look. He’s still in his loose-fitting jeans and sweatshirt from the night before, tired eyes drooping. His hair is fluffy and all over the place.

Yeonjun remembers, then. He’d kissed Soobin way more than was probably appropriate, and when Yeonjun eventually went to find his half-empty bottle of somaek, Soobin stopped him before he could get to the kitchen.

“You’re drunk enough,” he’d laughed. “It’s late, too.”

By then Yeonjun noticed half of the partygoers had already gone home. Taehyun and Beomgyu were huddled together as if telling each other secrets, but Hueningkai wasn’t around. Neither was Wooyoung or Ryujin. The beer pong table was left vacant and sticky.

“I’ll walk you to your dorm,” Soobin said.

He gathered their coats, waited the several minutes it took Yeonjun to find the arm holes on his, and helped him down the stairs. On the walk back, he even humored Yeonjun and had a mini snowball fight with him.

Yeonjun vaguely remembers saying, “You should stay,” when they got to the dorm. And he did, Yeonjun guesses. Now, Soobin holds out a to-go cup of coffee atop a container that smells sweet, like the food inside tastes the same way Soobin had the night before.

“...Thanks,” Yeonjun says, sitting up to take it, and Soobin plops down on Beomgyu’s unmade bed across from him.

“How are you feeling?” Soobin asks before taking a sip of his own coffee. His face scrunches up and he holds the cup out for Yeonjun, “Wait, wait. Switch. This bitter one’s yours.”

Yeonjun gratefully takes a sip once he has the right cup. He tries not to think about how his lips touch the same place Soobin’s had, and they’re basically kissing all over again. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up that the night before wasn’t just a fluke. Just a drunk boy flirting with Yeonjun because he knew he could.

“Anyway, how are you feeling? You were pretty drunk last night,” Soobin asks again. He holds up the paper bag he’d set beside him on the bed. “I brought pain relievers just in case.”

But in the time it takes for Yeonjun to catch the bottle Soobin tosses to him, take two pills with his coffee, and open up the container filled with pancakes and bacon, he realizes something.

So much of what Soobin has done since he’s crushed on him were things Yeonjun would’ve done for Lia. Watching a movie when he was in a bad mood, bringing him food while he worked, walking him home, staying the night, bringing him food and caffeine and acetaminophen for his hangover.

They’re all the type of ‘romantic gestures,’ as she called them, that he’d been avoiding. They were all the things she’d never reciprocated, never could reciprocate.

And Soobin did them all without question, even when he thought Yeonjun was straight. He’s doing them now, after they’d kissed. Maybe it isn’t a fluke. Maybe Soobin is like him. Maybe Soobin _likes_ him.

Yeonjun sits up straight and shuts the container without taking a bite of food. Soobin, startled by the sudden movement, stops halfway through drinking his coffee and looks at him over his cup.

“Soobin-ah,” Yeonjun says.

Soobin swallows and holds his cup in his lap. “Yeah?”

“Let’s go on a date,” he says quickly. And then he realizes that probably wasn’t the best way of asking. “If you want?”

“Okay,” Soobin nods, grinning. He takes another sip as if to hide it. “Sure. That sounds good.”

If only Yeonjun had known it would be that easy.


End file.
